Sunday, May 13, 2007

Who Needs to Learn a Lesson?

The lesson is as old as the ruins of Rome and as current as global politics today: When people confuse their faith in God with their desire for power, the the result is dangerous to both spirit and state.

So writes David Crumm, the religion columnist for the Detroit Free Press.

That message is echoing in bookstores now in "God and Empire: Jesus Against Rome, Then and Now" (Harper San Francisco; $22.95), a new book by popular Bible scholar John Dominic Crossan.

This might be a good book, I don't know.

The message also echoes from a 77-year-old article written by a famous Detroit pastor, the Rev. Reinhold Niebuhr. The Atlantic magazine revived the essay online recently.

"It's a timeless question about civilization, and we need to be asking it again today," Crossan said in a telephone interview from his home in Florida last week. "We see so many instances of faith being used to justify violence and war in our world. In our own country, people claim that God is blessing our empire.

"But it comes down to this question: Is religion just another mode of power in our world? Or is religion much bigger than any one empire?"

Although I've never read him, I've heard that Reinhold Niebuhr was an important Chirstian thinker. My problem with all of this is that, in this entire article the one religion that is currently battling the rest of the world tooth and nail is ignored. Once again, violence commited in the name of Allah by members of "The Religion of Peace" is ignored so that the alleged sins of Christianity in the United States can be exposed. I'm sure Mr. Crumm is supposed to treat all religions equally and not cast judgement on the excesses of Islam without also exposing the excesses of Judiasm and Christianity. The problem is that the excesses of Islam today go so far beyond anything followers of any other relgion are engaged in, he ends up excusing or ignoring the hate espoused by the imams.

2 Comments:

I again am not even surprised at how the world( and the MSM) is pretending the Muslims are so endearing and loving. Will we get the memo? Or will we have to have another 9-11? I don't know, but I feel that say it enough about how bad the Americans are and even we americans will believe it.

"No one can find a safe way out for himself if socety is sweeping towards destruction. Therefore everyone, in his own interests, must thrust himself vigorously into the intellectual battle. None can stand aside with unconcern; the interests of everyone hang on the result." -- Ludwig von Mises